


Salix bio

by Shatterpath



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:30:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because even minor characters have a story to tell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salix bio

Ingrid Fallmore “Salix” & Richard David

 

I am a child of the mean streets. Well, that’s my cover story, anyway. To be honest, I was one more link in the chain of bored and dispossessed suburb junkies that Los Angeles seems to stamp out like store bought gingersnaps.

Mmmm, gingersnaps…

But I digress.

My parents were normal, lower white middle class cogs in the aerospace industry that was the lifeblood of the LA desert. They were all I knew, and I was typically torn between loving and hating them. Mom seemed almost afraid of me, as though she knew something about me that I didn’t.

How right I was.

About the same time I wrapped up grade school, and the heat grew fiercer for the depths of summer, he showed up on our suburban doorstep like some kind of dark angel. It was just like me to be ecstatic that the frustratingly boring man I had called father all these years was no more than my mother’s partner, and no relation to me. The complete stranger, with his wry British drawl, was immediately and totally familiar to me. It was like looking into a mirror of personality. My father is a sarcastic, street smart bastard who is as oily, and successful, as the best of the old vaudevillian con artists.

How I love that man.

When the heat grew to close to his coat tails, papa had bailed out of England on the first plane for the City of Angles. I was so impressed with this wild and bizarre stranger that I ignored mom, horrified as she was by him, and we were an immediate, fabulous team.

Richard David is everything I wasn’t. And then he taught me everything he knew. In a summer of unfettered weirdness I was transformed from a repressed, miserable, dispossessed teen…

And was on the path to what I am today. Before I could even start junior high, I was off to learn the world with my papa. We were gypsies and circus folk and con artists. Those were some of the best years of my life. We kept moving, to keep mom and dad off our tail, and I learned as I went. Fortunately, I was a smart kid and was able to keep up the academics that I would have been learning in my hateful former life. We wandered all over North America, changing our identities as needed. By the time I was fourteen, we had settled into the City by the Bay and were making our mark there. During this time, I had begun to live a dark life pretty much 24/7. The Goth scene, the claustrophobic clubs and the neon jungle of the raves were where I learned myself. My outward appearance became an ever-changing canvas; bottle-black hair trimmed in whatever neon shade suited me, makeup like a freak-show vaudeville clown, contacts in every shade of color, pupils as artistically shaped as everything else. My clothes were the vampire/Goth shabby chic that took far more effort than its appearance might imply.

This was when I learned to hunt.

It was papa really, that showed me the true nature of humans. Oh, don’t looked so shocked, it wasn’t like that at all. Why is it that people assume something sick and incestuous when they find that father and daughters co-habitat in these circles? Really…

There are always predator and prey that live outside the main watering holes of their fellows. With animals it’s usually competition for resources or mates. For we humans, it more often means that we are shunned by our fellows because we are threatening to the status quo. Do most people realize just how easy it is to shock? Some crazy clothes, a careful palette of shocking values of make-up and the herd freaks out.

Obviously, I love it, because it’s my favorite game.

There are a few tattoos, though I generally abhor the permanency of them, as I prefer to live like water, fluid and adaptable. There are links of surgical steel, barbells and studs and knobs of precious materials to adorn my flesh. Oh, but those are the best, the burning shock of the needles, the molten slide of the adornment into the raw wounds left behind. I shiver just thinking about it.

The collection of metal in flesh focused a long-standing fetish into something useful. Since I could remember, I have been fascinated by chains. These, simple, elegant, infinitely useful and varied tools of humanity. Rope too, but not as much as the heavy solidness of metal chain. Even as a child, I collected bits and pieces of necklace and the dog next door’s old leash and the few links of medium-weight working chain the nice man at the hardware store snipped off the storage bucket for me. The scope and elaborateness of the collection grew as I did, sort of a tapestry of my life journey.

So, papa and I managed to stay out of trouble, and I let mom know I was alive and well on my eighteenth birthday, when I knew that she could no longer do anything about it. With a pooling of resources and some carefully manipulated club buddies, ‘Chains’ was opened in 1986. It’s still a very popular hang out for the locals, as I deliberately set it up to encourage diversity. The only things not tolerated are drugs and non-consensual. Many a scumbag has met their match in ‘Chains’.

We came into the circle of Diamonds fairly quickly, and the resistance to the partnership was all ours. Papa and I are free spirits and were loathe to climb into bed with some faceless corporate entity, no matter what their street rep. Faceless, that is, until we met the Red Queen.

I must tell you that, despite my not being generally attracted to girls, the power and poise of Sylvia Ventura was riveting. Statuesque, icily haughty and as traffic-stopping gorgeous as an old-world Irish queen, she commanded instant respect and a healthy dose of fear. I shook off my shock and got down to business, secretly amused that my normally verbose and witty papa remained idiotically silent for the whole thing. Terms were worked out, business to business, and we found ourselves included in the umbrella of Chess Red.

Since ‘Chains’ pretty much ran itself by that time, I was slavering for a new challenge. My needs were answered in the package of a big, handsome fellow with the most expressive eyes I have ever seen. Oh, the unfettered joys of grooming my big puppy to my exact needs, I could on for hours. My Jack is my masterpiece, a towering symbol of our combined strengths and weaknesses, our mutual devotion.

Later, I would find out that it was the semi-public training of my boy that brought me again to the attention of the Red Queen. Our second face-to-face meeting was an informal affair, a lovely dinner and drinks served by her personal body slave, Nicole. Sylvia asked me questions, and answered mine frankly in return. The woman didn’t have to respect me, but she did, and that impressed me far more than anything else. Something clicked between us that night, and I found myself suddenly on her personal food chain. Puppy was put through his paces often, and any small flaw earned a calm suggestion from my new mentor. I was even allowed the privilege of doing the same with Nicole.

Then there was Dace. I won’t lie, she was mostly an anathema to me. There was something far too out of control about her, something too raw, too untamed. Oh, she obeyed her Queen quickly enough, but I could sense what lurked beneath the surface.

It was no shock to me when the fallout between them was spectacular. By that time, I had carefully maneuvered myself to be invaluable and irreplaceable. Does this sound self-serving? Damn Skippy it’s self-serving! But it was also for a real love of what Sylvia had so painstakingly built. The vast empire overseen by Chess Red would have disintegrated in its Queen’s distraction over the bullshit with Leonacouer

In those dark days, only Nicole and I held everything together. It was also in those months that I became truly irreplaceable to Chess Red. Most of our clients required absolute discretion for both business and pleasure. They were reluctant to deal with a stranger. Luckily, I had Nicole nearby for most of the meetings, and I was given an ‘in’ with them through her familiarity. True, I used Sylvia’s emotional state to my advantage, but the business had to run. There was no other choice. Once she was herself again, I was firmly in the position to become the King of Diamonds.

The rest, as they say, is history.


End file.
